Heart's Beat
by e.sakano
Summary: Excerpt, ch.1/ She is almost a legend... and They accept her as she accepts them. They all come for the same reason, after all, to forget; to live as themselves, and be selfish for once.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: **Heart's Beat  
**Warnings:** Sakura, Eriol, Syaoran, Mei Ling, Tomoyo, Touya, Relationships  
**Disclaimer:** CLAMP owns 'em.  
**Notes:** Brushed it up a bit, and I guess fair warning should be issued; I'm listing this as complete, because each part _can_ stand alone, and my life is busy enough that I know that I can't promise regular updates. I do love the idea behind this, though, and I'll keep at it (even if it takes me years) until it feels like it's actually done.

* * *

The beat of the club pulses through her veins and carries her away. Her emotions sail so high that everything is almost transcendal bliss, except that it's not, and even though she has had more partners than she can count, she dances alone.

She is almost a legend in Tokyo's nightlife: the intangible dancer who frequents Shibuya and Roppongi. Rumor has it that she is a sex goddess, fire personified, and anyone who recognizes her realizes that the rumors hardly do her justice. She is more than just sex personified—she is lust and anger and need and seduction and more emotions than one could name rolled into one; every movement is attuned to detail.

Unfortunately for those who actively seek her, she is almost impossible to find. Her appearances in the more popular clubs—such as Liquidroom—are rare. Her favorite areas to appear are the underground clubs; the ones few people know off. Clubs where everyone, everything, is accepted for fact, and prejudice is rare.

They are clubs with a solid core of regulars whom she mingles with and drifts among with hardly a thought or care. They accept her as she accepts them. They all come for the same reason, after all, to forget; to live as themselves, and be selfish for once. There are restrictions to the people allowed in, of course, because no questions are allowed to be asked. Lovers become strangers, and strangers lovers—and so the only restriction to such clubs is that one be clean. Sex is an acceptable outlet that most everyone dabbles in.

Except her.

She is a tease, with her sinuous movements, her parody of sex on the floor and her dark, lust-filled eyes. Her partners dance with her, yes, but she is untouchable; she belongs to no one but herself, and she is never truly there. So they leave her to find someone else; thinking, as they engage themselves in the acts of forgetting, of flashing jade eyes and the smile and the kiss that would never be theirs.

That is life; the status quo which everyone in the club _Jacobin_ was acquainted with. And, though stories are almost never allowed, a story they share-a warning to newcomers.

"Don't bother," The bespectacled boy tilts his head back to raise a questioning eyebrow. "She's intangible."

The bartender smiles at the boy's nonplussed look and offers him a vodka tonic. The kid is barely nineteen, if even that, Jade is just as young. In fact, there are few patrons older than twenty, but such is life.

"Eriol," The boy whispers, breaking a rule older than just the club. "A name, but you don't need to know that."

The teen downs the drink and passes the empty cup to the tender.

"Besides, she's not mine to take.


	2. Chapter 2

**Title: **Heart's Beat  
**Warnings:** Sakura, Eriol, Syaoran, Mei Ling, Tomoyo, Touya, Relationships  
**Disclaimer:** CLAMP owns 'em.  
**Notes:** Second installment! YAY! I have no idea if this makes any sense, though. / Grrr, I should get a beta.

* * *

It takes weeks before she begins to notice him, and months before their impulsively chosen night haunts begin to coincide with any degree of regularity. Club _Jacobin_ has become somewhat of a regular haunt for 'Jade' since its opening, and it has taken Eriol months to decide upon gracing it with his presence.

His first night had not coincided with a visit from 'Jade', something many bartenders find unusual. The two are staples of the Tokyo nightlife; Eriol for his endless drinking capacity and unnerving honesty, and 'Jade' for her ephemeral existence. The underground network of information believes that it is fate's play to keep the two separate because coincidence—_"Fuck." "What's wrong, sweetie?" "If Jade's here, I can't ask Eriol for advice."_—is incapacitated by the tiny playground available them.

The approach of the inevitable becomes apparent when _Nanashi's_ doors close (again) because the bar is full and the dance floor is packed. And the next night, club _Jacobin_ has the same problem, and every other tiny club experiences the same problem until it is normal for numbers to swell at random clubs, and business everywhere else to suffer.

Then Eriol smiles as Jade leaves the dance floor, her eyes pinning him to his seat with a deep set rage that is dimly echoed within his eyes. The crowd parts for them, tension riding the air as she approaches. He gives her his drink—_a double shot, vodka on the rocks, that he had not touched despite ordering it five minutes ago_—and she gulps it down and smiles at him.

Even the bartender catches a gasp at the sincere welcome in her eyes.

"Eriol."

"Sakura."

He has killed Jade, and given them a gentler name for the tempest on the dance floor. By all means, she should hate him.

But there is only quiet resignation around her when she re-enters the dance floor and a perverse amusement as Eriol exits the club. When the numbers swell again the next night, this time it is Eriol who approaches Sakura—_Jade_—taking one dance with her.

It burns everyone around them because it is hate, frustration, and a deep-set anger. It shames every witness who forgot their own meager beginning, in a club suffering from their infidelity. Tonight it is she who leaves brimming with amusement, and he who sits helpless and resigned.

Once again, it is not coincidence that the two refuse to meet again for close to a month.


	3. Chapter 3

**Title: **Heart's Beat  
**Warnings:** Sakura, Eriol, Syaoran, Mei Ling, Tomoyo, Touya, Relationships  
**Disclaimer:** CLAMP owns 'em.  
**Notes:** My eternal love and gratitude to molten-amber(-sama ;) ) for beta-ing this for me!

* * *

Though their avoidance is not coincidence, their next meeting is; there is genuine shock on Sakura's face when she walks to the bar and finds Eriol waiting. He, on the other hand, is not surprised. He appears unflappable, and no patron will ever honestly admit to having ever recognized any emotion akin to shock in him. 

He offers her the last half of his mojito and Sakura laughs, a sweet, innocent sound that warms their eavesdroppers' hearts. She places her lips around the faint impression his had left, and takes a small sip, fully aware that he would pick up on the connotations of her careful awareness. For his part, Eriol is amused. He studies the girl, watching her eyes round with pleasure at the unexpected sweetness in the drink.

"You've never had a mojito before?"

"I usually stick to a double shot, with something to chase it with. It's not like I need to do anything more than refresh myself."

"You're missing out, Sakura."

"About that," she says, wrinkling her nose. "Couldn't you rename me as anyone else?"

"Why? It's not like you're being any less true to yourself."

"But even Yukito-san takes on a new name!"

"He certainly does not; he just takes on a definition that makes him closer to what he is."

"Eh?"

Eriol laughs and pops the last piece of his rice ball into her open mouth.

"Haven't you ever noticed? Hermes is neither your Tsukishirou-san, nor the almighty Yue. He's more than either of them because he is both."

Sakura swallows her food, her eyes taking on a calculating glint.

"Hermes, Mercury, Quicksilver?"

"I would have guessed that it came down to 'mercurial' myself, but 'quicksilver' isn't so bad, I suppose."

She slaps him gently, then finishes off her drink. Setting it on the counter, she flashes him a bright smile. Most of the people around them feel warmed by her expression, so bright and caring, a complete opposite from her seduction on the dance floor. Eriol is more perturbed by her expression, something Sakura finds evidence for in his sharpened gaze. His wariness is well founded; in a flash, Sakura's attitude changes, sex appeal practically dripping off of her as she leans into the older boy.

"And why," she whispers against his lips, "couldn't Jade be my Quicksilver?"

It would have taken a less inhibited man than Eriol to resist the temptation. His hand slides into her hair as they look at each other, then he pulls her into a searing kiss. His eyes seem to bore into her as she returns it, one arm gripping Eriol's seat for balance, the other looped around his neck. He breaks the kiss as unexpectedly as he began it. Brushing his fingers against the flush on her face, he smiles, enough conflicting emotions on his face to confuse even himself.

"Sakura is Sakura. There is no need for her to be anyone else."

He brushes another kiss accross her temple and turns her toward the dance floor. For a brief moment, his chest presses against her back as he whispers a comment that sends her into a spurt of laughter as she stumbles into her domain.

A wicked smirk crosses her lips; she refuses to consider an indirect kiss equivalent with that which he has stolen from her.


	4. Chapter 4

**Title:** Heart's Beat**  
Warnings:** Sakura, Eriol, Syaoran, Mei Ling, Tomoyo, Touya, Relationships**  
Disclaimer:** CLAMP owns 'em.**  
Notes:** Hmm.. It's been a while, hasn't it? Oh well! Here goes... If I remember, I'll put up the next two chapters sometime this week.

* * *

Sometimes, Eriol has to remember who he is. That is the true reason he slipped into the underground; identity issues and all that fun stuff. The underground is his, after all, and not Clow's. It is something unique to him because it is what he grew up with.

He grew up in London, an abandoned brat left in the gutter of a dark alley. A pub owner found him, and took him in. Until he was six, he lived with no name, a bright happy boy despite what he lived through. Then fate took over, and he learned the norms of life and slid up a scale of weirdness that no person could match.

He had passed his A-levels by nine and found himself apprenticed to a foul-mouthed man who worked paths of sorcery that few had ever been privileged to see. He was a prodigy unmatched by any save the long dead Clow Reed. Then an experiment went awry, and what was sealed was released and his magic doubled as he gained a past life; gained the ability to draw from the power of night.

With Clow, he was forced to seal away all his old life, and abandon his name for the identity a man who had never been him created. Hiiragizawa.

Eriol hates Clow; they are not the same person, and he hates the necessity which lead to his sealing his own life to finish that of a man he no longer is. After all, they do not share the same name; how could they be the same soul? So Eriol hides in the last vestiges of who he truly is; immerses himself in the clubs and ignores the woman who stole Clow's heart in vision all those years ago.

And so he does what Eriol, and not Clow, does best. 

Clow had very little understanding of the power of the human heart, but Eriol is overwhelmed with an abundance of life experience, something that shows in his unique ability to relate to any and all who approach him. He lords it over that part of his soul that had been Clow by giving advice to all who approached him, at no cost other than the story of how it might have worked, or been true, and how it might have failed.

However, it is Eriol's little secret. One he keeps hidden deep within his facade, alongside his growing interest in the surprisingly devious little girl who is Sakura Kinomoto.

She is becoming his new reason of being; a far more interesting creature than Clow had ever envisioned. And soon, he might separate themselves entirely.


End file.
